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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Oblivious Students

Some students are really oblivious. This is an e-mail I have been graced with during the holiday season:

Hi. I want to take your course on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But it's either full or I don't have the prerequisites. Could you find out why I can't register and tell me? I would really like to take this course. Thanks. Jamie.

I don't even know where to begin enumerating everything that is wrong with this e-mail. First of all, I know that my last name is hard to spell, but surely any one can copy-paste it from the catalogue of the course offerings. From that same catalogue the student could have learned that I teach all three of my courses on Tuesdays and Thursdays. How am I to know which course "Jamie" is planning to take? Especially taking into account that I have never met "Jamie," and no last name for him/her is provided. Failure to provide his/her last name also makes it completely impossible to find out which prerequisites "Jamie" has fulfilled for the course s/he fails to mention.

The concluding statement about how much "Jamie" wants to take this mysterious course sounds especially funny in view of all the above-listed facts. Do I need to mention that I am not experiencing any burning desire to have this student in any of my courses?

It is my sincere hope that "Jamie" will get a clue sometime before graduation because the job market nowadays isn't kind even to people who are a lot more intelligent, respectful and responsible than s/he.

3 comments:

Christy
said...

Not to mention the complete lack of initiative to find out the way to register from the correct party (like the registrar's office). If he/she wanted to take this so badly, Jamie would already be in the class.

A couple of years later the "Jamies" of the world graduate and start looking for a job. We then receive cover letters saying: "Hi. I am interested in the job. Can you please provide me with more details?" There is usually no mentioning of the exact job "Jamie" is inquiring about or the type of details s/he would like to have!

This is not always because the student is oblivious. I had a student yeaterday who was unable to register for a course because the registration software had the course listed as a prerequisite for itself.